


Memories

by Tassi_Ki



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, F/F, I'm so sorry, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 05:18:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassi_Ki/pseuds/Tassi_Ki
Summary: Toast to the ones here todayToast to the ones that we lost on the way'Cause the drinks bring back all the memoriesAnd the memories bring back, memories bring back you





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I am sooooo sorry my lovely followers. This came about when Memories by Maroon 5 came on the radio. The idea popped into my head and wouldn't go away till I wrote it. I promise you though that I cried just as much, if not more than you while writing it. Enjoy!

** _Here's to the ones that we got_ **

** _Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_ **

** _Of everything we've been through_ **

* * *

Sylvanas stared blankly at the wall in the den of her house. Her very, very empty house. What was once a happy place, filled with laughter and light, now felt cold, dark, and lonely. Glancing down at the glass in her hand, the elf refilled it with another two fingers of whiskey and took a sip, relishing the burn. Unbidden, her mind turned back to when the house had been a home.

* * *

_ Laughter filled the air as a lithe form danced down the hallway, dodging moving boxes in an effort to get away from the elf chasing her. Sylvanas couldn’t help but chuckle along with her wife, the laughter proving to be quite infectious.  _

_ “Come back here Jaina! I swear to Belore! When I get you I’m going to tickle you to death!” Sylvanas shouted as she raced after her beautiful mage. She was still sopping wet from Jaina using a bit of arcane magic to turn on the sprinklers when she’d headed back to the truck to get another load of belongings.  _

* * *

Sylvanas slipped back out of her memories as tears slid down her cheeks, a soft sob echoing through the room. 

“Belore...Jaina, why…” She asked, voice wobbling as she downed the rest of her glass, the burn of the alcohol searing through the agony in her heart, allowing her to feel something else for a moment. 

Slamming down the glass, Sylvanas picked up the bottle, drinking straight from it instead. She  _ needed  _ to feel something other than the pain she was drowning in now. Unfortunately, as her vision swam her mind did as well, heading back towards another memory.

* * *

** _Toast to the ones here today_ **

** _Toast to the ones that we lost on the way_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_ **

** _And the memories bring back, memories bring back you_ **

* * *

_ Sylvanas’ heart stopped, eyes widening considerably as she turned to face her wife. “I...I’m sorry, did I hear you right?” _

_ “Yes! It worked Syl, it worked! I’m pregnant!” The silverette said, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she beamed.  _

_ The sheer amount of joy that shot through Sylvanas was enough to bring her to her knees, a wobbly smile curling on her features as she pressed her hands to Jaina’s belly, caressing where her child would soon be growing. Dishes were left forgotten as Sylvanas stood and scooped Jaina up, spinning the woman around before heading to the bedroom. They would wind up celebrating late into the day. _

* * *

With another sob, Sylvanas forced herself to close the lid on her drink, stumbling off to the guest room. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep in the master. Not now. Not yet.

The next day Sylvanas dragged her body from the bed and went to wash up, forcing herself to dress and eat before heading to the door. Settling in the car, her heart stopped when the sweet scent of her wife filled her nose. Soon, she was lost in memories once more. 

* * *

_ “Hurry up Sylvanas! The quicker we get there the quicker we can see our baby!” _

_ “I can only drive so fast love. If we’re pulled over we’ll miss the appointment altogether. Belore woman, you’re like a chipmunk on coffee today!” Sylvanas said, laughing as she ducked under a swat from her pregnant wife, foot settling back on the gas as the light changed.  _

_ “But Syyylll…” Jaina whined, giving Sylvanas her best pout. _

_ “No. No speeding, love. I want to see them just as much as you, but I’d rather we get there in one piece, on time.” _

* * *

Biting her lip hard, Sylvanas shook her head and wiped away the tears threatening to fall. She couldn’t do this now. She couldn’t break. She had somewhere to be. Pulling out of the driveway, she turned the radio on and made her way to the highway. 

As she drove, she did her best to compartmentalize her emotions as she took a few deep breaths. It wasn’t meant to be, as when she passed by a much frequented ice cream shop tears began streaming down her face, forcing her to quickly pull over. 

* * *

** _There's a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain_ **

** _When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same_ **

** _Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name_ **

** _'Cause I can't reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah_ **

* * *

_ “Sylvanas, please? I’m sooooo hungry.” _

_ “We literally just ate Jaina.” _

_ “Yes, but not ice cream! The baby wants a rootbeer float with caramel sauce and cherries!” _

_ Sighing, Sylvanas pulled into the parking lot, shaking her head fondly. “Fine, fine, the baby can have that monstrosity while I have a shake,” she said, smiling as Jaina bounced in her seat with excitement.  _

_ A gasp drew her from her daze, her gaze sharpening as she focused in on her wife’s face. Instead of the pain or fear she was expecting, a look of wonder crossed Jaina’s features as her hands delicately settled on her growing belly. “I… I think she moved! Sylvanas, she moved!”  _

_ Sylvanas completed the world’s quickest parking job before letting her wife guide her hand to a spot on her belly. She was just starting to feel disheartened when a little kick nudged her hand, her ears perking up as she stared down at her hand in awe. “She… she did. I felt it!” _

* * *

Gathering herself up, Sylvanas wiped away her tears and glanced towards the ceiling, blinking rapidly to stem any further tears. Once she was road ready, she pulled back onto the road and headed on her way. 

Fifteen minutes later she was at the hospital, heart hammering in her chest as she headed in and to the NICU, nodding to the nurse and studiously ignoring the sympathetic look she got in response. Heading into the room on the left, she slowed to a stop in front of one of the incubators, hand resting on the plastic. 

“Hey there Ellaria, Mommy’s back,” She murmured softly.

* * *

_ Sylvanas was pale as a sheet as she drove, knuckles white with how tightly she gripped the steering wheel. Somewhere ahead of her was an ambulance, and in it, her heavily pregnant wife. They’d been having a calm night at home, having take-away on the couch when Jaina’s water had broken. Just… not how they’d imagined, and far too early. _

_ Jaina had doubled over with a moan half way through the movie, clutching her belly, and Sylvanas’ heart had sank as fear shot through her. Within minutes, Jaina was complaining about painful cramps, and instead of clear fluid, her pajama pants were quickly being soaked with blood.  _

_ A frantic call to 911 later and Sylvanas had packed the baby bag in the back of their car to follow after the ambulance taking the love of her life and her child to the ER.  _

* * *

Inhaling sharply, Sylvanas shook her head and focused back on her daughter, vaguely catching the end of someone speaking to her. Looking up, she was met with the sight of a smiling nurse. “I’m sorry…?”

“Would you like to hold her Mrs. Windrunner? It’s perfectly fine, and healthy even, for her to have skin to skin contact. You’d have to be careful with the tubes, but it’ll be easy enough.” The nurse said, holding up a dressing gown towards the elf.

With a shaky nod, Sylvanas took the gown and headed towards the small bathroom nearby, slipping out of her shirt and into the gown, loosely tying it behind her so she could pull it down in front a bit. Heading back to her daughter’s incubator, settling down in the rocking chair beside it as the nurse instructed her on how to adjust the gown enough for Ellaria to lay on her upper chest. 

Once she was in place, her daughter was carefully placed onto her chest and a blanket put over them both. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes as she ran a fingertip over the whining child’s head, murmuring softly to her.

“Shhh...I know baby, I know. Momma’s not here. We’ll make it though. We have to… for her.”

* * *

** _Everybody hurts sometimes_ **

** _Everybody hurts someday, aye aye_ **

** _But everything gon' be alright_ **

** _Go and raise a glass and say, aye_ **

* * *

_ Racing into the hospital, Sylvanas blurted out her wife’s name to the receptionist, followed by what had happened. When she was told that Jaina was in the operating room her heart skipped a beat as she settled into a daze, ears ringing.  _

_ The nurse, seeing her distress, gently led her to the OR waiting room, helping her slip on the sanitary over-clothing in case she was called in. Forty minutes later she was led to a recovery room where a deathly pale Jaina lay, breath coming in shaky rasps. In seconds she was by Jaina’s side, tears threatening to fall as she looked her over. “Jaina, baby? Are you okay…?” She asked softly, her chest feeling as if it was being torn apart. _

_ “M’fine…” Jaina mumbled, turning her head to look at her. “They saved her. She’s beautiful Syl… so beautiful. Our Ellaria… take care of her Syl. I love you…” _

_ “I love you too, and we’ll take great care of her Jaina.” Sylvanas said, voice hitching as she blinked back tears, trying her hardest to convince herself that it didn’t sound like Jaina was saying goodbye.  _

_ “You will… I love you… Sylvanas…” _

_ Alarms blared around her as Sylvanas watched Jaina’s eyes slid shut, the feeble grip on her hand going slack. She didn’t notice as she was shoved out of the room, a team of nurses rushing past to try and resuscitate Jaina. She was too far gone in shock, her hand tingling with the lingering feeling of Jaina’s hand in her own. A quiet yet rough, ‘I’m sorry Ma’am… She lost too much blood. Her heart couldn’t handle it.’ snapped her out of her shock enough for her gaze to focus in on the sight of five nurses staring at her with various looks of downtrodden sympathy.  _

_ “No… nonononono…” Sylvanas mumbled, glancing back into the room in time to see a sheet being pulled over Jaina’s face. A heartbreaking scream filled the hall, and it took Sylvanas a moment to realize it was hers as she stumbled into the room, yanking back the sheet enough to see Jaina’s peaceful features. _

_ “No, no! Jaina, please baby, please no! I need you, we need you! Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me!” She howled, shaking her wife’s body until she broke down sobbing, her head falling forward to rest on Jaina’s still chest. “Please no… please no. Belore, please no. Don’t take my Jaina…”  _

* * *

Choking back a sob, Sylvanas snapped back to the present, carefully wiping her tears away… and off of her squalling daughter’s head. “I’m sorry sweet one. Mommy got lost in thought. Shhh, you’re okay,” she murmured, starting to hum a soft lullaby. 

Slowly but surely Ellaria calmed back down, falling asleep on her chest. Sylvanas stayed where she was for as long as she could, only moving once her daughter was put back in the incubator. Once dressed again she settled back in the rocking chair, nodding off after a while of singing to her daughter. It seemed like the only nightmare free sleep she could get was when she was near her daughter; her light, her hope for a better future.

She was shaken awake hours later, the nurse murmuring apologies as she pointed out it was well past lunch and Sylvanas  _ needed  _ to eat. Needed to be healthy for her daughter. One serious guilt trip later Sylvanas was carefully eating a hospital meal, doing more picking with her fork than truly eating. She would be forever grateful to the nurses doing their best to go above and beyond their job to care for her as well while she processed the death of her wife.

* * *

Somehow, Sylvanas managed to pull her life together just in time for Ellaria to come home. She made the excuse that it was to make sure she could hear her daughter when she cried when she set up an air mattress in the nursery, but deep down she knew it was because she still couldn’t bear to go near the master bedroom.

Weeks went by without much incident, but the lack of sleep was slowly wearing down on Sylvanas until she was back in her den, a bottle of whisky in hand. Her daughter was sleeping in a bassinet nearby as she unscrewed the lid. 

“Don’t do that love. You can’t go down that road. Ellaria needs you.” A soft voice filled the den, making Sylvanas jump and nearly drop the open bottle. Looking up, she saw the visage of her dead wife, kneeling down beside her daughter, ghostly fingertips trailing over the child’s head.

“Wha… what? Jaina…? How…”

“A desperate mind can do many things love. Now, put that bottle down Syl, Ellaria needs you. You can’t drown yourself in alcohol.”

“I.. I… please don’t go. I can’t… I can’t do this alone Jaina.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not here. This is all you. I’m sorry.”

With a sob, Sylvanas closed the bottle and set it down, glancing back up to see an empty room. Putting her head in her hands, she quietly cried out her heartbreak until Ellaria cried. Quickly, she moved to pick her daughter up, rocking back and forth as she began singing to calm the little elfling down. 

* * *

** _Here's to the ones that we got_ **

** _Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_ **

** _Of everything we've been through_ **

* * *

It had been a long, long year filled with heartache and joy in equal measure. A few weeks after she took Ellaria home she had planned and executed a funeral for her wife, barely managing to function the entire time except to care for their daughter. The funeral was beautiful, something truly fitting for the mage it was for. Sylvanas barely remembered a detail though, in a daze through the entire thing, eyes raw from repeatedly wiping them dry. After that came the will reading, and the true realization that Jaina would never be coming back. She’d nearly lost herself in the drink again after that revelation hit home. Only Ellaria had kept her sane. 

From there it was a melancholy set of firsts as Ellaria learned to roll over, sit up, crawl, scoot, talk, walk, and run. She made sure her daughter knew her Momma’s voice, and what she looked like, home videos from their years together becoming a bi-weekly affair for the two of them.

Both to Sylvanas’ joy and pain, Ellaria’s first word turned out to be Momma. Her beautiful daughter had been watching a video with Sylvanas, this one being one that Sylvanas had taken when Jaina hadn’t been looking. Jaina had been sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, rocking the chair lightly while she sang to her growing, unborn Ellaria, hand lightly rubbing her belly. As Ellaria watched, she’d reached towards the tv and cried out a happy ‘Momma!’

Much to Sylvanas’ surprise, most of her firsts turned out to be centered around Jaina. Her picnics at the grave site to fill Jaina in on what life was shaping up to be were where Ellaria first learned to push herself up and crawl, where she finally sat up on her own, and where she took her first steps. It was actually quite therapeutic for the elf to know that in spirit, Jaina was there for all of those firsts. There was one dark spot in all those firsts though. Ellaria’s first birthday. It was painfully hard in a few ways; the anniversary of her Jaina’s death, and the fact that she wouldn’t be going to Jaina’s grave to share it with her.

Time seemed to fly by, the days slowly becoming more bearable the longer her little Ellaria was with her. After a year, she was finally able to move back into the master, her first night  _ was  _ spent crying, but it got easier and the ache lessened. 

Ellaria’s first birthday was hell for Sylvanas. Sweet torture. It was amazing, because her beautiful daughter was a year old and growing stronger by the day, but it was also so painful that her wife had missed this milestone.

Soon, one year turned into two, and then three. While Sylvanas still had her moments of weakness, drinking a glass of whisky while watching home movies of her wife, the ache slowly eased to something manageable. 

* * *

** _Toast to the ones here today_ **

** _Toast to the ones that we lost on the way_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_ **

** _And the memories bring back, memories bring back you_ **

* * *

Sighing softly, Sylvanas lightly caressed Jaina’s picture, murmuring a soft I love you. It was now five years since that fateful day, and heart wrenching pain and anger at Jaina being taken from her finally gave way to missing the woman fiercely with the occasional bout of depression. 

“Talkin’ to Momma…?”

“Yeah babygirl.”

“Kay. Love you Momma! Mommy, we gotta go, my soccer game is starting soon!”

“I’ll be there in a moment, sweetheart, go ahead and get your bag.”

Sylvanas barely held it together until Ellaria was gone, a few tears sliding down her cheeks once she was alone. “I miss you so much Dalah’surfal. I hope you’re watching today, your baby’s gonna kick ass.”

With one last glance at her love’s picture, she headed to the car, helping Ellaria into her carseat. All the way to the game, Ellaria was a bundle of energy, spouting off the plays she was going to make, and how she was going to dance after a goal. 

Smiling softly she looked in the rear view mirror, her heart clenching slightly at just how much her daughter was starting to look like Jaina. Blonde hair was slowly going silver except for a streak opposite of where her wife’s had been, and those blue eyes were a dead ringer for Jaina’s. The elf ears however, were all Sylvanas.

Once at the game, she settled down in her camping chair to watch, warmth filling her at the happy laughter so like her wife’s. She might never be ready for someone new in her life, but that didn’t matter as long as she had Ellaria. Her family might be a bit broken, but it was perfect the way it was, and Sylvanas was starting to see that. She was slowly healing, and the little ball of sunshine on the field had helped with that quite a bit. 

* * *

Five years soon turned to ten, and her baby was suddenly nearly a teen. The pain had finally gone away, and now she happily went about her days with Ellaria, regailing her with stories of her Momma whenever she could to make sure Jaina’s legacy lived on. School had started up again, and Sylvanas found herself looking forward to nights at the kitchen table helping Ellaria puzzle through homework. The whiskey was all but forgotten except on the anniversary of Jaina’s death, Jaina’s birthday, and whenever she went to her wife’s grave. When at the grave though, she made sure to pour a glass for the woman she loved so dearly, letting it sit while she talked. 

“You should see her Jaina, she’s growing so big. She’s almost a teen now. I can’t believe it’s been ten years. I have to go and pick her up from soccer practice. I love you, Dalah’surfal.”

* * *

** _There's a time that I remember when I never felt so lost_ **

** _When I felt all of the hatred was too powerful to stop (ooh, yeah)_ **

** _Now my heart feel like an ember and it's lighting up the dark_ **

** _I'll carry these torches for ya that you know I'll never drop, yeah_ **

** _Everybody hurts sometimes_ **

** _Everybody hurts someday, aye aye_ **

** _But everything gon' be alright_ **

** _Go and raise a glass and say, aye_ **

* * *

Sylvanas settled back in her bed, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she sipped the drink in her hand. She’d requested her daughter bring her whiskey of all things, and the now forty year old Ellaria agreed, amusement clear in her gaze. Whiskey had always been what she drank when remembering her wife, and it seemed fitting that she do so now that she felt it in her bones that she’d see Jaina again soon. 

“Take care of yourself Ellaria,” She murmured, reaching out to caress her daughter’s cheek. “Don’t cry for me too long. I’m finally going to see my Jaina again, I’ll be alright. We’ll make sure to watch you and your family. We can’t miss out on all those milestones after all. Make sure to give us some whiskey from time to time, eh?”

Once her daughter was gone, Sylvanas set her glass aside and lay back down, her eyes slipping shut. “I’m coming Jaina. Sorry I took so long, but you left me with quite the beautiful reason to live,” she murmured, drifting off into a deep sleep. Soon, alarms were blaring around her, just as when her life had changed so dramatically. 

When she opened her eyes, she was met by the smiling visage of her wife, tears springing to her eyes when the beautiful woman reached out and caressed her cheek.

“You did a wonderful job Syl. I knew you could. Come on love, let’s go home.”

“I’m already home Dalah’surfal. With you in my arms, I’ll always be home,” Sylvanas murmured as she enveloped her wife in a warm hug, burying her face in the woman’s neck.

* * *

** _Here's to the ones that we got (oh oh)_ **

** _Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_ **

** _Of everything we've been through (no, no)_ **

** _Toast to the ones here today (aye)_ **

** _Toast to the ones that we lost on the way_ **

** _'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories (aye)_ **

** _And the memories bring back, memories bring back you_ **


End file.
